


Leatherbound

by ddm



Category: Star Trek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, John Harrison is a dick, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:40:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26118961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ddm/pseuds/ddm
Summary: Leonard finds a mysterious journal in the hospital waiting room and what he finds inside makes him very curious about the owner. But how will he find them?
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Comments: 7
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own any character.  
> Also, I am not sure where I'm going yet.

He was sitting alone in the waiting room. He was hunched over, his face in his hands. It was never easy delivering bad news, but especially after a surgery like this. He was almost there. He had almost made it. He had taken the tumor out, checked all the nerve signals, he had good neurological responses. He had it. And then he didn't. Patient died on the table right as he was getting ready to close. They tried and tried to resuscitate, but it didn't happen. He was gone.  
  
“Leonard, you need to get some rest.”  
He looked up at her and sighed.  
“Yeah. Thanks Christine!” And then he added “You did great in there today. There’s just nothing else to do sometimes.”  
She gave him a soft smile. “I know. Please remember that yourself.” And with that she turned around and left.  
  
He lingered another minute, with his head hung down, trying to gather some strength and that’s when he saw it. A corner of a leather journal was wedged between two chairs. He got up and pulled it out from between the chairs and looked at it. It was a brown all leather journal with a leather string around it that kept it closed. Leonard looked at it for a second and then decided to look inside in case there was a name. He opened it slowly, secretly grateful for the distraction. There didn't seem to be a name on the first pages, just fragments of what seemed to be quotes and other notes in beautiful cursive handwriting and what seemed to be ink. Real ink on paper. That's not something you see everyday now. He was intrigued and captivated by this notebook, but he knew he needed to take it to the lost and found in case the owner was looking for it. That would be the right thing to do.  
As he was walking towards the front desk, he felt more and more reluctant to part with the journal. It felt like it was a gift out of nowhere that had come to soothe his pain and give him something new to think about. He was now staring at the front desk attendant as she was giving him a puzzled look.  
  
“May I help you, Dr. McCoy?”  
“Sorry, what was that?” he snapped out of his daze.  
“I asked if you needed anything, you seem tired.”  
“Oh, yeah. Well, I found this.” And he shows her the leatherbound journal. “In the waiting room, and i was going to leave it in the lost and found box.”  
“Sure” she says as she extends her hand to take it from him.  
“You know what?” he instinctively clutches the journal closer, “why don’t i just leave a note there that if someone comes looking for it they can page me.”  
She looked at him confused “Wouldn’t it be easier to leave it here?”  
“No, no” he says more resolutely now, as if he had made up his mind finally about it. “It seems important and it will be safer in my office. Let’s just do that.”  
“Ok” the front desk attendant just shrugged and got a pen to write a note about it. Leonard thanked her and walked back towards his office to get his things and go home.   
It had been a long day, and yet he wasn’t all that eager to head out yet. He sat down at his desk, with a large cup of cold water to freshen him up and looked at the journal on his desk. It felt like crossing a boundary to read it. It wasn’t his, he had no permission. Whoever lost it must have held it dear because he could see from the wear of the leather that it was a well used journal, but also well taken care of. He opened his drawer and put it in there. He wouldn’t read it. It wasn’t his.  
As he walked home, he kept trying to imagine to whom the journal belonged. It could have been someone related to the young man he operated on today, but it could also have been sitting there for weeks with how it had been wedged between the two seats. It had been mere coincidence and luck that he had seen it there. For all he knew, the person might have come back to look for it and because it hadn’t been in the lost and found they might have give up and forgotten about it. He didn’t know, there was no way to know, but he felt oddly comforted to know that the journal was safe inside his drawer for now.

“No, fuck you! That was negligent and you fucking know it!”  
“Leonard! Please!” Christine Chapel had her hands on his shoulders trying to push him away as he was trying to get in the other surgeon’s face. He was seething with rage and wanted nothing more than to punch that asshole in the face.  
“I don’t know where the fuck you went to medical school, but that was not the procedure! That was not ok! That kid is dead now!” he spat and finally let Christine push him away a few steps. He knew he should not be arguing like this in the hallways, he knew it wasn’t ok, but that kid had died for no reason other than the fact that this moron didn’t take any of the normal precautions.  
“There were no Babinski signs” the surgeon said, holding up his hands at chest level, defensively.  
“No fucking Babinski signs” Leonard mutthers as he lunges for the other surgeon again, who takes another step back in fear.  
“Ok, that’s enough!” Christin says raising her voice. “It can not be undone now, Leonard. Just file your report.”  
  
Leonard straightened and looked the surgeon in the eye menacingly, but then turned around and headed towards his office. Once the door is closed he sinks down into the chair and rubs his face with his hands, trying to calm himself down. Six year old boy had fallen off a ledge on top of a chair and his back was slit open right by his lower spine. He had a few episodes of bradycardia, but he was fine otherwise so Dr. Shepherd only ordered x-rays of the lower back to check for fracture. Had he done a full CT scan, he might have seen some air bubbles going up towards the brain. Pneumocephalus. Christine was right, it was too late now to think about it. He wanted to write the report, but he also didn't. What he really wanted was to not be here right now, in his own life, feeling like he was the one that fucked up.  
He sighed and rubbed his face again and then he opened the drawer. He didn't know exactly why he did it, but now that it was open he picked up the journal and ran his hands slowly on the leather. He had found himself doing that more and more lately. He was drawn to the journal as if it contained some secrets only for him to discover.  
Finally he decided to open it and read a little bit. Just the first page.  
"You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes?" Friedrich Nietzsche


	2. 2

What he found in the journal was odd. He wasn’t sure exactly what he had expected, but most likely not this collection of astronomy, physics, literature, philosophy and theology. Plus the loose leaf with a bucket list on it: make friends with crows; see Rigil Kent; visit New Zealand; see an aurora; learn German.

Leonard was certainly intrigued. He felt he was getting a glimpse at the inner life of a mysterious person, seeing something that might not be available to anyone else to see, sharing secrets in a very intimate way. If he could guess, he thought these were the things that had moved the person whose journal this was so they decided to record them here. Although the presence of several alphabets including the military one kind of made him reconsider. Ulysses by Lord Alfred Tennyson was on the first page in beautiful handwriting and what he guessed to be real ink.  
  
“Come, my friends,  
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.  
Push off, and sitting well in order smite  
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds  
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths  
Of all the western stars, until I die.  
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:  
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,  
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.  
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'  
We are not now that strength which in old days  
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;  
One equal temper of heroic hearts,  
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will  
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.  
  
Leonard remembered reading it before, remembered that it was longer so this must be only a fragment, but now it seemed like a cornerstone, the yearning for freedom stood out a lot more.  
Page two had a long quote from Nicolai Hartmann about ethics. The Greek and military alphabets followed and then some short philosophical quotes about quantum mechanics of all things. Leonard was baffled but more and more intrigued. Page seven came with the explanation of how to switch from the decimal to the binary system when writing numbers. Then four pages of astronomy facts, from which craters the rovers landed into, to the oldest minerals, to bosons and hadrons and fermions, to quantum nonlocality.

Back to a poem then, The Master Speed by Robert Frost.  
“No speed of wind or water rushing by  
But you have speed far greater. You can climb  
Back up a stream of radiance to the sky,  
And back through history up the stream of time.  
And you were given this swiftness, not for haste  
Nor chiefly that you may go where you will,  
But in the rush of everything to waste,  
That you may have the power of standing still-  
Off any still or moving thing you say.  
Two such as you with such a master speed  
Cannot be parted nor be swept away  
From one another once you are agreed  
That life is only life forevermore  
Together wing to wing and oar to oar.”  
Strangely romantic at the end. He felt oddly moved by it, by the poem or by this person that put it all in here.

A knock on his door pulled him out of his concentration.  
“Come in!”  
It was Christine. “Are you ready for your next appointment?”  
Leonard took a deep breath and centered himself. “Yeah, I’m coming.”  
“Have you consulted with Dr. Harrison before?”  
“No. He’s new, isn’t he?”  
Christine sighed “He is, and he also has a reputation of being… arrogant. So please try to not explode again.”  
Leonard rolled his eyes at that. “I’ll be fine. Besides, he can’t be more of an asshole than me.” With a wink and a smile he turned the corner and headed towards the plastic surgery wing. Christine was a good friend that looked out for him and he was grateful. 

“What an arrogant piece of shit!”  
“So I take it that went well” Christine said as she was typing away at the keyboard.  
“He’s a fucking pompous asshole! With his fancy British accent and his all-knowing attitude!” Leonard was pulling his hair in exasperation.  
“Did you turn down his request to collaborate?”  
“No” with a sigh of defeat. “I really think he needs a neurosurgeon in there. Might as well be me. I think Boyce might punch him in the face if he had to be in the same room with him for several hours."  
"Ha!" That got a laugh from Christine. She looked at him carefully. "This is a good sign. I can tell you are doing better."  
Leonard stopped his pacing, looked at her and blushed. "Yeah, well, it's about time I guess. I'm heading out. You have a good weekend now!"  
"See you Leonard!" She gave him a warm smile and then went back to her typing.  
  
Christine was an exceptional nurse. Her work ethics were impeccable, but she also knew how to be a good friend. She had been invaluable to Leonard both professionally and personally since his divorce. He was a grumpy asshole most of the time, and yet she remained a steadying presence.  
Leonard went to his office to get his things and hesitated for a minute thinking of the journal. He didn't want to leave it here. He knew it probably wasn't right to read what was in it, it was somehow too intimate, but he also thought about how unlikely it was for it to be returned to its rightful owner. No one had come looking for it so far. He put it in his bag. He would take it home, maybe read those two poems again.  
At the front desk he hesitated for a minute then decided to leave a way to be contacted in case someone came looking for a leather bound journal. The front desk attendant seemed intrigued more than anything, but he kept it brief, left his phone number on a piece of paper and headed home.  
  
With a glass of bourbon, he decided to sit by the fireplace and look at the journal some more. He loved the beautiful handwriting, loved knowing it was written in real ink, probably with a fancy fountain pen. What a strange, yet lovely person this might be. He imagined sitting there, in the same room, but there's another person, reading to him from the journal. He would have his eyes closed with his head resting on the back of the chair, and the words of a beautiful poem would wash over him.  
That's what he remembered was on the next page: another poem. Leonard opened the journal and started reading out loud:  
  
“History student falls in love with astrophysics student by Keaton St. James  
listen, nine hundred and fifty years before jesus was a child shaking  
willow leaves out of his tangled curls,  
the author of the song of solomon wrote: behold,  
you are beautiful; your eyes are doves.  
what i’m trying to say is that, in this universe  
which sculpted itself from a baptism of fire,  
i am the moon swept up by your  
tenderness. you’ve got me dreaming  
foreign words: gravity, ellipsis, perigee,  
until all i can think about is becoming  
anchored into orbit around the saltwater-  
green landscape of your laughter.  
listen, plato of ancient greece wrote  
that the souls we each have now are only  
halves. that in a frenzy of blood zeus  
severed us from each other, so we rely  
on the blind tugging of our hearts.  
you say my name and i want to  
knit my bones into your bones, smooth away  
the boundaries of our heartbeats.  
what i’m trying to say is that if the temperature  
inside those wild pockets of interstellar  
dust hits right near absolute zero,  
carbon monoxide and dihydrogen  
molecules condense together in the dark  
nebula to form stars. if you’re ready,  
i want to make you shiver like that.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leonard finally meets Jim, but things are not what they might seem.

“Would you like to come to my engagement party next week?” Harrison asks.“Doctor McCoy?”  
Leonard gets startled for a second as he didn’t expect the question to be addressed to him. “Are you asking me to go to your engagement party?” unable to hide the incredulity in his voice.  
With a deep sigh “Yes, I would be grateful if you could. You see, I haven’t made quite as many friends since I have moved here and I do not want all the attendees to be just my fiance’s faculty friends. There is just so much I can hear about art and literature in an evening.” Harrison explained with an obvious eye roll towards the end.  
“So you want to fill the party with medical staff you barely know?” Leonard asked.  
“Basically yes. It is a matter of my honour.”  
‘This guy is something else’ thought Leonard as he chuckled to himself. “Sure, I’ll come to your party, Dr. Harrison. Why don’t you leave an invitation with Christine and I’ll make sure I’m there.”  
“Please, call me John. And you are of course welcome to bring a date.”  
“What if my date is of the artistic or literary sort? Would that still be fine with you?”  
Harrison regards him for a second and then lets out a bark of laughter. “You have quite a sense of humour, doctor.”

“What is this?” Christine asked him while holding a fancy envelope.  
"That must be the invitation to that arrogant asshole's engagement party. I hope you are free, i was hoping you would be my plus one."  
"Are you serious? You want to go? You despise the guy!"  
"Very much so, but now I am curious about the poor soul that's going to marry him. Either she's just as bad as he is or somewhat brainwashed."  
"He."  
"What?"  
"The fiance. I hear it's a he not a she."  
"I thought he was banging a bunch of nurses down in pediatrics."  
"People can be bi, Leonard."  
"I know that! I'm bi! I guess I just didn't get that vibe from him."  
"I didn't actually know you were bi. I guess I just assumed because you were married to a woman."  
"Fair. And I don't often date men."  
"That's just because you don't date at all. Alright, I'll come to this charade with you, but you let me be your wingman and maybe we can get you laid."  
"You can try, but no one wants a piece of this old man."  
"Ha! You'd be surprised!"

The party was indeed fancy, as Leonard expected it to be. Christine put on a lovely long sleeved royal blue dress covered in sparkly sequins that was down to her knees and had a straight cut. Her blonde hair was down in large curls and she wore red lipstick. He rarely saw her like this, out of scrubs and dressed up. He found that he did not desire her, but he admired her greatly nonetheless. Leonard decided to forego the suit, no matter how fancy the party was and went for some casual oxfords with black chinos and a navy blue button up shirt. He thought he looked ok enough at home, but next to Christine he definitely looked underdressed.  


"So what is the goal for the night then? Gossip on the fiance and find you a date?"  
"Gossip on the fiance yes, no date for me. Besides, I'll be walking in there with the most beautiful woman on my arm, that's all I can desire for tonight."  
"Flattery will get you nowhere!" She said, swatting at his arm. "Come on, let's go in."  


The venue was not actually very large, but there were already a lot of people there talking and mingling. Leonard spotted a couple of other doctors from the hospital in one corner and then he saw Harrison making the rounds. Him and Christine walked over to the bar and then Christine was gone saying that she thought she saw someone familiar. Leonard didn't really feel like going to talk to his co-workers so he busied himself with a drink and remained there watching people.  


"Are you looking for someone in particular?"  
Leonard was startled out of his musings by a man with gorgeous blue eyes and a soft smile.  
"Not really. My friend went to say hi to someone so I'm just waiting here."  
"Are you a plus one then and don't know anyone here?" The blue eyed man asked with amusement.  
"No, I actually work with Harrison. My name is Leonard."  
He went to shake the other man's hand.  
"Jim. Nice to meet you! There's a whole group of doctors over by…"  
"Yeah, I've seen them, but I'm really not in the mood to talk about work."  
“Oh, not the typical doctor, I see.” Jim said with a coy smile that got a laugh out of Leonard.  
“I try to think my life is a bit more than the bones and the brains.”  
“More than the Bones and the brains… that's a good goal in life i would say.”  
“What about you Jim, what do you do?”  
“I teach. I’m a professor of semiotics and cultural studies at the university.”  
“That sounds fascinating. Not that I actually know what semiotics is.”  
The smile Jim gave him was at the same time wide and genuine and shy.  
“Believe me, it may sound fascinating, but it can get boring after a while if you are not into it yourself.”  
“I don’t know, Jim, I suspect you could make a lot of things sound interesting. Tell me a bit about it.”  
“Semiotics is the study of signs. Codes, representation, anything that communicates a meaning. I try to teach students about various theories of signs and to get them to think more about how to properly and accurately convey meaning.”  
“Ok, that is really fascinating. What do you love about it?”  
Then there was a blush. ‘How marvelous’ Leonard thought.  
“I like that I get to think critically about a lot of things and that I get to read and talk about my favourite authors, and I also like that it is a field that is so vast, I am never bored.”  
“If I were to start reading something tomorrow that’s related to your field, what would you recommend?”  
“Hmmm, great question” he bit his lip as he was thinking and Leonard couldn’t help but follow the movement with his eyes. “Roland Barthes, I suppose. Mythologies. It’s still philosophy, which I am not sure you are into, but the essays are short and fun.”  
“I’ll have to remember that.” and then he decided to take the full leap since he apparently thought it would be a good idea to start flirting with the handsome man he met just 4 minutes ago.  
“I’m sorry Leonard, I can’t. It was nice to meet you, but I have to go.” With that he headed back into the crowd leaving Leonard a bit stunned. He got another drink and sat at the bar, mentally berating himself for being too forward.  


“Oh, here you are!” he heard Christine next to him. “Come on, Leonard, Harrison is about to give his speech and I don’t want to miss it.”  
Leonard got up and followed Christine closer to the side of the room where there was a podium just as Harrison was stepping up and beside him no one other than Jim. Leonard’s brain refused to connect the dots for a few seconds, but as Harrison started speaking with one hand lifting a glass and one around Jim’s shoulders, it finally clicked for Leonard: Jim, that lovely blue eyed man, was marrying Harrison.  


“I would like to thank you all for coming here tonight to celebrate my intention to marry this man and finally start a family. You all know I am a loyal man in search of a stable life and children. James here has proven to be everything I desire in a life partner: he is kind, loving and very forgiving. Qualities undoubtedly necessary for life by my side. I am unworthy of your love, James, but very happy you said yes!” with that Harrison briefly kissed James on the mount and then turned to a group of his friends that had their glasses up and were cheering. Jim also turned and moved to stand with a beautiful dark skinned woman and a tall dark haired man who have him sympathetic looks.  


Leonard felt like a fool. He didn’t necessarily feel humiliated because Jim had turned him down, but he definitely felt uneasy about making a pass at Harrison’s fiance.  
“I’ll be at the bar” he told Christine and headed that way, but she was right next to him.  
“What a weird speech!” she said as she sat next to her, gesturing to the bartender to get her another drink. “And he didn’t even let James say anything. Odd couple for sure.”  
Leonard just gave a noncommittal sound as acknowledgement and decided his best bet is to just change the subject.  
“Where did you run off too? Didn’t think you came tonight to chat with coworkers.”  
“Not a coworker. I saw my roommate from university, Nyota. She’s here with her husband whom I remember she was dating even back then. She works with the fiance, got her degree in literature and teaches now.”  
“That’s nice.” Leonard said distractedly.  
“Ok. What happened?”  
“Nothing happened.”  
“Leonard.”  
“...”  
“Leonard.”  
“Fine. Jim was making the rounds and he was polite enough to come by and talk to the the sorry ass man at the bar and i asked him out.”  
“Who’s Jim?”  
“James.”  
“The fiance!?!”  
“Shout it louder, why don’t you?”  
“Sorry. But let me get this. You asked out James while he came to welcome you to his own engagement party.”  
“You make me sound like an idiot when you put it like that. I didn’t know he was the fiance, i didn’t even read the damn invitation to know his name, I just checked the address. And he came by and said he was Jim, no further explanation.”  
“Well… If he invites you to their wedding, maybe you can try again.”  
That got a laugh out of him and he elbowed her in the ribs.  
“You are such an asshole.”  
“That’s why we are friends.” she quipped back.

After a few more drinks and after meeting Nyota and her husband Spock and exchanging pleasantries and other impressions, Leonard was ready to head out and put this night behind him. He still felt a bit embarrassed, but he decided it had been an honest mistake, and in the end it was just an invitation to go out, not a sexual proposition. But he did feel that he owed Jim an apology so he decided to seek him out and talk to him. He found him in a corner of the room with the event organizer signing some documents and decided to just go say his piece briefly and then head out.  


“Jim.” Leonard said softly and when Jim turned and pinned him with his deep blue eyes, he was once again stunned at how beautiful they were.  
“Bones and brains!” Jim said with a smile.  
“Look, I wanted to apologize. I guess you already figured out that me and Harrison are not close friends, otherwise I would have known more about you and would not have asked you out at your own engagement party. I am sorry!”  
Jim’s smile was practically blinding now. “It was actually very flattering and it was an honest mistake. And don’t worry, I won’t tell John.”  
Leonard frowned at that last affirmation: “I’m not worried about what Harrison thinks, I wanted to apologize to you! I don’t want you to think that I am some sort of player coming onto people that are committed.”  
Another beautiful blush. “I appreciated that, Leonard.”  
“Ah, so you remembered my name, not just the bones and the brains.” Leonard said, trying to lighten the mood, and it did get him a laugh.  
“Yes, it seems I did.”  
“Well, maybe I'll see you around the hospital when you come to visit your fiance.”  
“Yeah, maybe. I'd be good to get to know his friends better.”  
“Yeah, he’ll love it, surprise him one day!”  
“I’ll see you around, Bones!”  
“See you around, Jim!”


End file.
